Meet the "Touch Grass" Guys
A new style of dressing embraces earthy colors, soft silhouettes, and natural fibers.
Like so many men, it took Anthony Nguyen some time to find his style. He’s gone from J.Crew and GQ to Hypebeast and clothing drops to workwear and gorpcore. “I sampled things the way you go through music,” Nguyen, 42, says. “But what I kept coming back to was fabric. The fiber is where the real conversation lives. There’s a kind of permanence in a well-made piece of cloth that trends can’t really touch.”
Today, Nguyen has settled into a subtler, earthier look. “Neutral and utilitarian, but with what I’d call a peasant undercurrent (lol!),” the San Francisco-based digital product designer says. “Clean lines, natural materials, nothing that draws attention to itself. The goal is clothing that feels like an extension of how you move, rather than something you’ve put on.”
“Earthy,” he adds, “without being costume-y about it.”
I’ve noticed a certain type of guy embracing this way of dressing — in my head, I’ve dubbed them Earth Boys or Touch Grass Guys. They gravitate toward loose, easy silhouettes, favor a dusky, solemn palette, and are swathed in raw, unprocessed fibers of cotton, wool, or linen. There’s a folksy quality to it, even a bit old-timey. Their clothes are often crafted in small batches by a maker as opposed to some highfalutin creative director at a sprawling conglomerate-owned brand. The fabrics are muddy-colored, hearty in weight, and often paired with a beanie and clogs. A little bit workwear, a little bit hippy, a little bit hobo, with a touch of gardener sprinkled on top.
I wouldn’t call this a trend, per se, but more an overarching sartorial philosophy or a holistic approach to dressing. It is, to a certain degree, about aesthetics, but it also feels connected to values — something verging on anti-fashion, in its way. Jonah Weiner of Blackbird Spyplane, Noah Johnson of Highsnobiety, and Kevin Carney of the Los Angeles shop Mohawk General Store strike me as the high-profile exemplars. Shops like Ven. Space in Brooklyn, Neighbour in Vancouver, and C’H’C’M’ and Colbo in Manhattan traffic in their wares. Brands that line these Earth Boys’ closets include Man-Tle, William Fredrick, James Coward, Comoli, Conkers, and, perhaps most of all, Evan Kinori.
Tim Cruz says that the core of his current wardrobe comes from the San Francisco-based Kinori. “He’s nailed down a relatively narrow set of styles: three or four different kinds of shirts and pants. While he iterates through styles, what you’ll see is a lot of repeated ones, but in different fabrics. That’s interesting because the fabric will give two otherwise identical garments very different narratives.”
